Three Steps Closer and Two Steps Back, but Getting Closer to Final Cover!

When Dennis sent me the next round of cover concepts, I nearly fell out of my chair! Now this is more like it!

BANE at banedarkart.com

Instead of portraits of the two characters, we both decided to use a scene instead for the cover. This is the moment just before Ella Bandita steals the Wanderer's heart. As a whole, Ella Bandita looks amazing here - he really captured her essence. But there's no need for her to be holding her dagger in her other hand - she's not stealing his heart so she can stab it. On his website, I've found that Dennis really likes to put sharp knives in the hands of women - go figure. And where's the Wanderer? That figure with his back to us could be anybody, and after all the effort to get the Wanderer right, I didn't want him to go to waste. I asked Dennis if he could find a way to turn the Wanderer to face the reader, but still keep him trapped in the swirl of magic.

And this is one that Dennis sent me next:

BANE at banedarkart.com

I asked Dennis to extend her hand out, Ella Bandita in readiness to receive the heart she's about to steal. But with the Wanderer in profile, it's not much of an improvement because you still can't see him. And in that pose, he looks like a doofus. But the next one is... well, you'll see.

BANE at banedarkart.com

And here, the Wanderer does not look like the Wanderer in his portrait and he looks like a character out of a zombie movie - which would be fine, if he were any of her other conquests. But he's not. The Wanderer is the only conquest that does not lose his personality and his will after Ella Bandita steals his heart. I also didn't like the shift in perspective - I loved the composition in his original concepts above - I felt like my eye was totally drawn into the scene, and these didn't seem nearly as balanced. Dennis reassured me that he hadn't meant to work the Wanderer in and was working with a generic male face and would make adjustments once I was happy with the final image. He also explained the reasons why I preferred the original composition as creating a circle around Ella Bandita with the moon, the shape of the tree to her left and the curve of the Wanderer towards her. As soon as he explained it to me, I saw it. We talked some more and he said he'd work a few days on some ideas to find that balance between the Wanderer's visibility and the circular composition that was so compelling.

As I said, we're getting closer!